Political Science 325: Public Administration

Fall 2023

Labor Negotiations Assignment

Due Date: Wednesday, December 20th no later than 11:59PM EST

Format: Single spaced, one-inch margins with no more than 11-point font.

Length: 2 pages

Bibliography: Required. Proper citations.

Overview

The below excerpts are to be used in answering the essay question. You must incorporate the excerpts in your essay response.

The Staggering Power of the Teachers’ Unions by Terry M. Moe, July 13, 2011

UNION POWER AND AMERICA’S SCHOOLS

It might seem that the teachers’ unions would play a limited role in public education: fighting for better pay and working conditions for their members, but otherwise having little impact on the structure and performance of the public schools more generally. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The teachers’ unions have more influence on the public schools than any other group in American society.

Their influence takes two forms. They shape the schools from the bottom up, through collective bargaining activities so broad in scope that virtually every aspect of school organization bears the distinctive imprint of union design. They also shape the schools from the top down, through political activities that give them unrivaled influence over the laws and regulations imposed on public education by government, and that allow them to block or weaken governmental reforms they find threatening. In combining bottom-up and top-down influence, and in combining them as potently as they do, the teachers’ unions are unique among all actors in the educational arena.

It’s difficult to overstate how extensive a role the unions play in making America’s schools what they are—and in preventing them from being something different.

Before the 1960s, the power holders in America’s public school system were the administrative professionals charged with running it, as well as the local school boards who appointed them. Teachers had little power, and they were unorganized aside from their widespread membership in the National Education Association (NEA), which was a professional organization controlled by administrators. In the 1960s, however, states began to adopt laws that for the first time promoted collective bargaining for public employees. When the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) launched a campaign to organize the nation’s teachers into unions, the NEA turned itself into a labor union (and eventually kicked out the administrators) to compete, and the battle was on in thousands of school districts. By the time the dust settled in the early 1980s, virtually all districts of any size (outside the South) were successfully organized, collective bargaining was the norm, and the teachers’ unions reigned supreme as the most powerful force in American education.

This transformation—the rise of union power—created what was essentially a new system of public education. This new system has now been in equilibrium for roughly thirty years, and throughout this time it has been vigorously protected—and stabilized—by the very union power that created it.[footnoteRef:1] [1: Source: https://www.hoover.org/research/staggering-power-teachers-unions The Hoover Institute at Stanford University is named for President Hoover. Media Bias/Fact Check (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/hoover-institution/) rates Hoover Institute as right-center biased based on economic positions that align with the conservative right, coupled with left-leaning libertarian social stances. ]

Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers—and the Public Diane Ravitch

The union is thus necessary as a protection for teachers against the arbitrary exercise of power by heavy-handed administrators. In our school systems, as in our city, state, and federal governments, we need checks and balances. Just as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government all act as checks on each other, we need checks and balances in our school systems. It is unwise to centralize all power in one person: the mayor. We need independent lay school boards to hire the superintendent and to hold open public discussions of administrative decisions, and we need independent teacher unions to assure that teachers’ rights are protected, to sound the alarm against unwise policies, and to advocate on behalf of sound education policies, especially when administrators are non-educators.

In the current climate, when it is in vogue to select non-educators to administer school systems, it is vital that teachers have a voice. School reform cannot possibly succeed when teachers—who are on the frontlines of implementation—are left out of the decision-making process. If there is no “buy-in,” if teachers do not willingly concur with the orders handed down from on high, then reform cannot succeed. If administrators operate by stealth and confrontation, then their plans for reform will founder. They cannot improve what happens in the classroom by humiliating and bossing around the teachers who are in daily contact with the children. Only in an atmosphere of mutual respect can administrators and teachers produce the kind of partnership that will benefit students. And administrators cannot achieve this collaborative atmosphere unless they are willing to talk with and listen to the leaders chosen by teachers to represent them.

The essentials of good education are the same everywhere: a rigorous curriculum, effective instruction, adequate resources, willing students, and a social and cultural climate in which education is encouraged and respected. Teacher unions today, as in the past, must work to make these essentials available in every district for every school and every student. They cannot do it alone. They must work with administrators and elected officials to advance these goals. The unions will continue to be important, vital, and needed so long as they speak on behalf of the rights and dignity of teachers and the essentials of good education.[footnoteRef:2] [2: Source: https://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/winter-2006-2007/why-teacher-unions-are-good-teachers-and The AFT is the American Federation of Teachers, a union that that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. ( https://www.aft.org/about/mission ) ]

Question

Using your class experience as a member of a Fallsburg collective bargaining team member, do you agree or disagree that teachers’ unions, through the collective bargaining process, shape the school district’s policies?[footnoteRef:3] [3: By policy I mean items such as: class size, teacher prep time, salary structure, health benefits, leaves.]

Your essay
must use the Fallsburg materials and bargaining session activities plus the above excepts, to provide the rationale as to why you agree or disagree with the above question.